COMMUNITY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY
For more than fifty years the idea of community has been at the heart of the PA. From the experiment at Kingsley Hall to its current therapeutic households, the PA’s work has always involved a shared attempt to deal with the hardship of emotional distress through the practice of living together.
When the PA was set up, its counter-culture mission was to find an alternative to psychiatric treatment. All these years later the world has changed beyond recognition. Long-stay psychiatric hospitals have mostly been closed down but they haven’t been replaced by a more enlightened and communal approach to suffering, as R. D. Laing and other PA founders hoped they would be. Instead cost-cutting quick fixes and a punishing work ethic are the order of the day. Community as a therapeutic ideal remains as elusive as ever in today’s fragmented, competitive and increasingly digital world. Yet the need for it is more and more urgent.
But it isn’t as easy as saying that community is good and marginalisation is bad. It is possible to feel at home in prison and in prison at home. Bands of outsiders may be much more tolerant, cohesive and healing than clubs or churches. The shared experience of adversity often creates a powerful solidarity, while shared privilege can be divisive and alienating. Thus thinking about community must also involve thinking about how one group impacts, threatens, ignores, deprives another. Community presupposes conflict.
This course serves as both as a stand alone certificate course and an introduction to the PA (including the PA communities)
Held at the PA premises in Hampstead, north London, the course takes place over six weekends spread out over the academic year. You will encounter various modes of group work to explore group dynamics / what goes on between us. Seminars will frame topics to discuss but the heart of the course is experiential, comparative learning about group formats and dynamics – and their relationship to the politics of the wider society. It will be possible to apply to the one year Diploma in Community and Psychotherapy and the Psychotherapy Training from the Experiential Course.
APPLICATION AND FEES
Application is by interview.
The course costs £840 plus a £50 interview fee. There are a limited number of bursaries available for students surviving on low income. Interviews from April 2022, click here too apply.
2022/23 COURSE PROGRAMME
PROGRAMME
Course Coordinators:
Andrea Heath & Lucy King
Experiential Group Facilitator:
Luke Reynolds
Consciousness-raising Group Facilitator:
Paul Atkinson
Administration Iain Strong & Sophia Raja
WEEKEND 1
Saturday 15 October 2022
10—10.30 Arrivals
10.30—11 Introduction to the Course
Andrea Heath & Lucy King
11—12.30 Seminar:
The Organisation As a Source of Individual Purpose
Dan Sofer
12—1.30 Lunch
1.30—3 The Philadelphia Association (PA)
Philosophy, Community, Psychotherapy
Past & Present
Lucy King & Ian McMillan
3—3.30 Break
3.30—5 Experiential group
Luke Reynolds
Sunday 16 October
10.30—11 Arrivals
11—12.30 Seminar;
On Community
Jake Osborne
12.30—1.30 Lunch
1.30—3.00
Consciousness-raising Group
Paul Atkinson
3—3.30 Break
3.30—5 Experiential Group
Luke Reynolds
WEEKEND 2
Saturday 26 November 2022
10—11 Arrivals & Large Group
Andrea Heath & Lucy King
11.00 —12.30
Working Relationally
Andy Metcalf
12.30 —1.30 Lunch
1.30—3
Avoiding Intimacy
Nick Duffell
3—3.30 Break
3.30—5 Experiential group
Sunday 27 November
10.30—11 Arrivals
11—12.30
On Phenomenology
Emma Stroker
12.30—1.30 Lunch
1.30—3.00 Consciousness-raising Group
Paul Atkinson
3—3.30 Break
3.30—5 Experiential Group
Luke Reynolds
WEEKEND 3
Saturday 14 January 2023
10 - 11.00 Arrivals & Large Group Meeting
Lucy King & Andrea Heath
11.00 - 12.30
The Divided Self
Alison Davies & Nick Mercer
12.30 - 1.30 Lunch
1.30—3
The Psyche as an Energetic Field
Nick Duffell
3—3.30 Break
3.30—5 Experiential Group
Luke Reynolds
Sunday 15 January 2023
10.30—11 Arrivals
11—12.30 Womens Narratives
Christina Moutsou
12.30—1.30 Lunch
1.30—3.00 Consciousness-raising Group
Paul Atkinson
3—3.30 Break
3.30—5 Experiential Group
Luke Reynolds
R. D. Laing
WEEKEND 4
Saturday 11 March 2023
10 - 11.00 Arrivals & Large Group
Andrea Heath & Lucy King
11.00 —12.30
The Scapegoat
Del Loewenthal
12.30—1.30 Lunch
1.30—3
Antipsychiatry Discussion Group 1: Family Madhouses
Rob White
3—3.30 Break
3.30—5 Experiential group
Luke Reynolds
Sunday 12 March
10.30—11 Arrivals
11—12.30 Seminar
The Power of Relations
Alia Butt
12.30—1.30 Lunch
1.30—3.00 Consciousness-raising Group
Paul Atkinson
3—3.30 Break
3.30—5 Experiential Group
WEEKEND 5
Saturday 22 April
10—11 Arrivals & Large Group
Andrea Heath & Lucy King
11-12.30 Seminar:
The World Comes First: Philosophy and
the Social
Paul Gurney
12.30 — 1.30 Lunch
1.30—3
Antipsychiatry Discussion Group 2: The X Process
Rob White
3—3.30 Break
3.30—5 Experiential Group
Luke Reynolds
Sunday 23 April
10.30—11 Arrivals
11—12.30
Seminar: Homelessness and Psychosis
Andreas Constandinos
12.30—1.30 Lunch
1.30—3.00 Consciousness-raising Group
Paul Atkinson
3—3.30 Break
3.30—5 Experiential Group
WEEKEND 6
Saturday 10 June
10—11 Arrivals & Large Group
Andrea Heath & Lucy King
11—12.30 Seminar:
Friendship, Beauty and Justice:
On Being Fair
Robbie Lockwood
12.30—1 .30 Lunch
1.30—3
Antipsychiatry Discussion Group 3:
Therapy and Revolution
Rob White
3—3.30 Break
3.30—5 Experiential group
Sunday 11 June
10.30—11 Arrivals
11—12.30 Endings and Course Reflection
Andrea Heath & Lucy King
12.30—1.30 Lunch
1.30—3.00 Consciousness-raising Group
Paul Atkinson
3—3.30 Break
3.30—5 Experiential Group
Luke Reynolds